


Firelight

by VampireBadger



Category: Bravely Default (Video Game) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Camping, F/M, Friendship, Minor shipping, unrequited romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 19:37:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6672892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampireBadger/pseuds/VampireBadger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a while, awakening the crystals gets to be routine. Go into a temple, fight a monster, wake the crystal, repeat (and repeat and repeat). But then after, they take the night off. They pitch their tents, build their fire, and just... rest. Together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Firelight

It's quiet in the camp this evening. Always is, after they awaken a crystal. Agnes is too tired to move, and no one tries to force her. She's sitting against a tree, head lolling back, eyes almost closed, breathing very lightly. Tiz sticks close to her, building up their campfire and throwing anxious glances in Agnes's direction. He's obviously worried, but that's not exactly new either. If past experience is anything to go by—and it should be by now, they've done this… what, a dozen times? More? If past experience proves anything at all, it must be that Tiz won't be back to his normal self until Agnes is back to hers.

Ringabel is supposed to be setting up his and Tiz's tent, but he can't focus tonight. His head hurts. It's not _easy_ , getting his memories back, not when they're as painful as his are proving to be. Most of the time, Ringabel can deal with it, but today's fight with Rusalka had been particularly difficult. Ringabel is fine, physically (he has been fighting for what feels like all his life, but somehow never _truly_ appreciated healing magic until this adventure). But he feels bruised and beaten in a way that is more than just physical injuries, and he's weary all the way through to the bone. Also wet. Rusalka isn't the most difficult of the crystal guardians to get past, but being repeatedly soaked through with water is thoroughly unpleasant, and then there's the laundry to worry about—

His rambling chain of thought is cut off abruptly by a clattering sound and then a high shriek—Ringabel whips his head around, expecting trouble, but it's just Edea. She's supposed to be setting up the tent she shares with Agnes, but it's collapsed on top of her.

This is a slightly less common event than Agnes's post-crystal exhaustion or Tiz's hovering worry. But it's not so unexpected that Ringabel really feels worried by it—instead, he very nearly feels like smiling.

Ringabel drops his own armful of tent poles when Edea starts swearing and trots over to her. "Need a hand?"

"No," Edea says at once. She tries to wiggle free of the fallen tent, but jams her knee against something heavy (Ringabel winces at the loud thump it makes) and gives in. "Fine," she says. "You can help me."

-//-

Ringabel had assumed at first that 'help me' meant 'help me stand up,' but apparently it means 'help me put this tent together.' He'd then assumed that 'help me put this tent together meant 'we can do it together,' but actually it's something closer to 'you do it and I'll watch.' Really, Ringabel should know better by now. He works in silence, too distracted by the pain in his head and the damned _memories_ to say anything. Edea fills the silence, chattering away about the next crystal they need to head for, about her empty stomach (of course), about the bugs she claims are eating her alive. She must be as tired as the rest of them, but she shines so brightly anyway—she makes Ringabel feel warm, despite his sopping clothes and the nighttime chill.

"Ringabel—!" Edea hits him in the arm. "You're not paying any attention to me!"

"Sorry."

"What's wrong with you?" Edea whines. "Cheer up already."

He doesn't want to talk about all the sad, heavy things in his head right now. He doesn't want to be sad at all, and he's pretty sure that talking will only make it worse. "Just… getting tired of doing all this," he mumbles instead. "Saving the world, then saving another world, and what if we never get to the end, Edea? What if we just keep going like this for the rest of our lives?"

"We won't," Edea says. "We'll get it right sooner or later."

She makes some kind of vague, confusing gesture—counting down on her fingers then sort of flapping her arms. She looks so absurdly _serious_ as she does it that Ringabel can't keep himself from bursting into laughter. Edea scowls and hits him again.

"Sorry," he says. "Sorry, but—I have no idea what that's supposed to mean."

"You _know_!"

"I don't!" he insists.

Edea rolls her eyes and grabs him by the shoulder. Ringabel is already tensing up for another hit when he realizes Edea is only planning to whisper in his ear. He goes still, and for a moment they are so close. Ringabel can feel her breath on his ear when she whispers, "Airy's wings? They're counting down, remember. We'll get to zero eventually."

Ringabel glances round instinctually, but Airy is busy nagging Agnes about something. She's not paying any attention to them.

"I guess," he says. "But right now it just feels so endless. And…"

"And?"

"And lonely," Ringabel admits. "We don't belong here. This isn't our world."

Edea hesitates, and her hand twitches toward him, then away again. " _We're_ our world," she says, suddenly. "Me, you, Agnes, Tiz—I don't need a whole world to remember what we're fighting for. I just need all of you."

"Really?"

She nods. "Why do you think we always do this after awakening a crystal?"

"Do what?" Ringabel asks. His aching head is moving even slower with Edea beside him, and he keeps thinking that she shouldn't be able to smell so good after fighting for her life against a giant, sentient wave. But she just… smells like Edea. And to Ringabel, that seems like a pretty good smell.

"We camp out," Edea says. "We have a perfectly good airship that can take us straight to the next temple if we want it to, but every time we awaken a crystal, we pitch camp instead."

"We need these night," Agnes calls from behind them. Ringabel turns around and sees that she's perked up a little and opened her eyes. Tiz is sitting nearby, almost hovering. "Just to take a break. And to be with each other."

Edea goes to sit by the fire next to Agnes and Ringabel, of course, follows her. Agnes doesn't say anything else after that—none of them does. For a long time they just sit there, wrapped in their personal silence, surrounded by the larger quiet of the trees around them. Even the monsters that Ringabel knows must be nearby are keeping their distance tonight. When they finally do talk, it's about nothing. Food first, then a little bit of gentle teasing, then just a friendly, familiar chatter. Nothing serious, but then—what do they really need to say? They've done this before. They know what they're doing, they know where they're going. There's nothing new to say, but as long as he's sitting here, with these people, with his _friends_ , the familiarity of it all is comfort enough for Ringabel.

How long has Edea been his whole world? How long has she been the brightest light in his life? Ringabel's missing memories are still patchwork at best, still coming back in bits and pieces but _she's always there_. In the few really clear memories he has, in the picture slipped between the pages of D's… his journal.

And now she is actually, physically here, at his side. And the light Ringabel has always seen in Edea has grown, it has spread so that it's bright enough to reach Agnes and Tiz too. Maybe even Ringabel. He can feel something like a light, something bright and warm inside him when he's with these people.

"You were right," Ringabel says to Edea at last, when Agnes has gone to bed and Tiz has gone to struggle with the tent Ringabel was supposed to have set up.

"Of course," Edea says, with absolute confidence. Then, slightly less sure—"About what?"

"You're my world," Ringabel says.

For a second, the only sound is the crackling of the fire, and Agnes calling goodnight to Tiz in the distance.

"I said _we're_ our whole world," Edea says. "All of us, not just… look, Ringabel—"

"I know," he says. "I know."

He stands, leaving Edea by the fire, and goes to help Tiz with the tent.


End file.
